Egypt Implicates 4 Men Killed by Police in Death of Italian Student

CAIRO — The Interior Ministry said Thursday that Egyptian officers killed four men who the ministry suggested were responsible for the murder of an Italian doctoral student whose brutalized body was found in early February showing extensive signs of torture.

In a statement released on its Facebook page, the ministry said that the men were part of a gang that preyed on foreigners and that officers had killed them during a shootout. The authorities later found property belonging to the student, Giulio Regeni, at the home of a sister of one of the gang members, the statement said.

However, the prosecutor investigating Mr. Regeni’s case told The Associated Press on Thursday that he had no information about the gang and said “there are no suspects.”

The government of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been under pressure to solve the killing of Mr. Regeni since his disappearance in late January, because of a growing conviction around the world that Egypt’s security forces were responsible. The case has drawn outrage in Italy.

Italian officials have vowed to keep up pressure on the Egyptian government to conduct a thorough inquiry, and have dispatched a team of investigators to Cairo.

There was no immediate comment from the Italian government after the Egyptian announcement, which thanked the Italian investigators.

Several factors had led to the suspicion that Egyptian security agencies had played a role in the student’s death.

Over the last two years, Mr. Sisi’s government has carried out a crackdown on dissidents, and there was a surge in reports of abductions, torture and other abuses by the security forces in the months before Mr. Regeni, 28, disappeared. He was last heard from on Jan. 25, when police officers were deployed in force across Cairo to prevent any protests commemorating the 2011 uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak.

Several witnesses said they had seen plainclothes security men stopping young men in the area where Mr. Regeni was last seen while on his way to meet friends. When his body was found nine days later, with cigarette burns, broken bones and fingernails removed, many Italian officials became more convinced of an official hand in his death.

The Egyptian government has denied any suggestion that security forces were responsible.

The Interior Ministry did not say whether their investigation into the student’s disappearance had led to the gang members. The statement said that officers found them in a minibus in the New Cairo district on Thursday, and that the men opened fire when the officers approached.

All four men were killed in the shootout. It was not clear whether any officers were killed or injured. In the minibus, the authorities found the body of an unidentified fifth man, in his 30s, according to the ministry.

They also found guns and fake police identity cards. At the home of a gang member’s sister, the police found a bag that they said contained Mr. Regeni’s passport, his credit card and cellphones, as well as identity cards from Cambridge and the American University in Cairo, two institutions he was affiliated with.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: Egypt Implicates 4 Men Killed by Police in Death of Italian. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe